nehasavant's review
3.0
No doubt a valuable (and beautifully designed) book for imagining and learning about indigenous technologies across the globe. I appreciated the descriptions of connections between spiritual, cultural and ecological traditions, and how together humans have created sustainable, symbiotic systems with nature. Though Watson rightly criticizes modern conservation's worship of "wilderness" and "saving nature", there was a subtle sentiment was that we still need to "save indigenous people" and "take their climate resilient technologies" back to the U.S. (yay neocolonialism) as opposed to support, lift up and fight for indigenous sovereignty and fundamentally change the U.S. worldview. Her writing was also pretty bad, and very academic. The most interesting parts of the book were the interviews with the tired change-makers in the communities that worked between indigenous people's needs and the modern world.
All in all, glad I read the book. It's clear Watson is trying to do right, but is coming from a stilted American-academic worldview.
All in all, glad I read the book. It's clear Watson is trying to do right, but is coming from a stilted American-academic worldview.
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